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1It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. Neither
2men nor toad-stools grow so. As if that were important, and there were not enough to understand you without them. As if
3Nature could support but one order of understandings, could not sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as well as
4creeping things, and hush and who, which Bright can understand, were the best English. As if there were safety in
5stupidity alone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extra-vagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the
6narrow limits of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extra vagance!
7it depends on how you are yarded. The migrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not
8extravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cow-yard fence, and runs after her calf, in milking time.
9I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am
10convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression. Who that has heard a strain
11of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever? In view of the future or possible, we should
12live quite laxly and undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows reveal an insensible
13perspiration toward the sun. The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual
14statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains. The words which express our faith
15and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures. Why level
16downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men
17asleep, which they express by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half-witted with the
18half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit. Some would find fault with the morning-red, if they
19ever got up early enough. "They pretend," as I hear, "that the verses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion,
20spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas;" but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for
21complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot,
22will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally? I do not suppose that I
23have attained to obscurity, but I should be proud if no more fatal fault were found with my pages on this score than was
24found with the Walden ice. Southern customers objected to its blue color, which is the evidence of its purity, as if it
25were muddy, and preferred the Cambridge ice, which is white, but tastes of weeds. The purity men love is like the mists
26which envelop the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond. Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and
27moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to
28the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of
29pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was
30made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep
31pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears,
32however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. Shall he
33turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which
34we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over
35ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former
36were not? There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into
37his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work
38time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my
39life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material;
40and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their
41works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety,
42endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way,
43and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable
44the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the
45proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last
46of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no
47longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferrule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and
48slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it
49suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made
50a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties
51had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still
52fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had
53elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a
54mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful? No face which
55we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not
56where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into
57it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only
58the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom
59Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to
60remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.
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